News Broadcasting
HTMT acquires Source One Communications USA
MUMBAI: Hinduja TMT (HTMT) has signed an agreement with Georgeson Shareholder Communications, Inc. to acquire 100 per cent of Source One Communications Inc.USA (SOC) in an all-cash deal of approximately US$ 8.5 million, funded entirely through internal accruals.
SOC has operations in New Jersey (USA), Toronto (Canada) and Manila (Philippines) through a subsidiary called Source One Communications Asia (SOCA).
SOCA is a joint venture company set up in 2001 between SOC (57.5 per cent ownership) and Customer Contact Center Inc. (c3), Manila (42.5 per cent ownership). It may be recalled that HTMT recently acquired controlling interest in c3, which has independent revenue of USD 6.8 Million and for which HTMT paid USD 3.9 million. With the acquisition of SOC and its current shareholding in SOCA, HTMT has consolidated its ownership of SOCA, informs an official release.
SOC had consolidated revenue of USD 15.87 million in its fiscal year ended 30 June 2004. It currently operates a total of 500 call center seats in USA, Canada and the Philippines, which is growing today. Source One has on-shore, near-shore and off-shore call center facilities at USA, Canada and Philippines. It has multi lingual capabilities of French & Spanish besides English. The company has marketing and client management teams located in New Jersey, adds the release.
Together with c3, the total number of seats in Manila amount to over 1000. The total number of clients served by SOC, SOCA and c3 are 22. These clients include multinationals and Fortune 500 companies in different verticals like pharmaceutical products, consumer electronics and household products, financial services, energy and utilities.
Commenting on the SOC acquisition, HTMT COO K observed: “Source One is an excellent strategic fit to our past acquisition of c3. The current acquisition is a definitive step in the evolution of HTMT into a global ITES company. Cross selling BPO, call center services with multi lingual capabilities, and IT in diversified verticals across different geographical locations now provides HTMT a competitive edge against its peers leading to potential scaling and higher profitability. We believe that the scaling up of both SOCA and c3 operations based on excellent customer response to the quality and competitiveness delivered, is likely to considerably improve the topline and bottomline of the entities.”
News Broadcasting
Senior media executive Madhu Soman exits Zee Media
Former Reuters and Bloomberg leader says he leaves with “no regrets” after brief stint at WION and Zee Business
NOIDA: Madhu Soman, a veteran of global newsrooms and media sales floors, has stepped away from Zee Media Corporation after a short stint steering business strategy for WION and Zee Business.
In a reflective LinkedIn note marking his departure, Soman said his time within the network’s corridors was always likely to be brief. “Some chapters close faster than expected,” he wrote, signalling the end of a nearly two-year spell in which he oversaw both editorial partnerships and commercial strategy.
Soman joined Zee Media in 2022 after more than a decade abroad with Reuters and Bloomberg, returning to India to take on the role of chief business officer for WION and Zee Business. His mandate was ambitious: bridge the newsroom and the revenue desk while expanding digital and broadcast reach.
During the stint, Zee Business reached break-even for the first time since its launch in 2005, while WION refreshed programming and strengthened its digital footprint across platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
But Soman suggested the cultural fit proved uneasy. Describing himself as a “cultural misfit”, he hinted at deeper tensions between editorial instincts shaped in global newsrooms and the realities of India’s television news ecosystem.
Before joining Zee, Soman spent more than seven years at Bloomberg in Hong Kong as head of broadcast sales for Asia-Pacific, expanding the company’s news syndication business across several markets. Earlier, he held senior editorial roles at Reuters, overseeing online strategy in India and managing Reuters Video Services from London.
His career began in television and wire reporting, including a stint with ANI during the 1999 Kargil conflict, before moving into digital publishing as India’s internet media landscape took shape.
Now, after nearly three decades in broadcast and digital media, Soman is leaving Delhi NCR and returning to his hometown, Trivandrum.
Exhausted, he admits. But unbowed. And with one quiet line that sums up the journey: he didn’t sell his soul — because some things, after all, are not for sale.
